


in the quiet (in the crowd)

by cookiemonsta



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Best Friends, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Serious Injuries, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:50:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1703780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiemonsta/pseuds/cookiemonsta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After weeks of friction, it takes a near-death experience for Oliver to finally open up to Tommy. Spoilers upto and including 1.18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the quiet (in the crowd)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my bae [audeamus22](http://archiveofourown.org/users/audeamus22/pseuds/audeamus22) <33333

Queen Mansion is buzzing with activity, and Tommy Merlyn crosses the threshold dressed sharply in a black tuxedo; a wry smile dancing on his lips. Tonight Q Consolidated is hosting their annual charity gala, a chance for the big names in town to make their presence — and wealth — known.

For Tommy though, this is just another Friday night in Starling City.

Despite the numerous guests milling about in the foyer; all dressed in expensive suits or flowing gowns and clutching flutes of champagne, there’s one face missing from the crowd. Tommy smiles to himself once more — punctuality was never Oliver’s strong suit — and heads upstairs.

It’s been two weeks since Oliver revealed himself as the vigilante, and Tommy would love to say that things are normal between them now; that they’ve worked through it all like two grown men are more than capable of doing. For the most part it’d be true, but they aren’t quite there yet. There’s friction between them now that never existed before, a jarring kind of stop-start tension that Tommy isn’t sure how to diffuse.

So it’s with a little trepidation that Tommy opens the door to Oliver’s room, steps inside and closes the door behind himself. Once inside he scans the room; expecting to find Oliver fiddling with his bowtie or shrugging an expensive suit onto his shoulders, but the room is empty.

The first thing Tommy notices is an immaculate tuxedo, untouched where it lies draped over a chair by the bed, and nearby, a pair of silver cufflinks glistening where they rest on a side table next to Oliver’s wristwatch. The bathroom door is closed, a golden crack of light visible underneath, and Tommy can hear the shower running. That, in and of itself, should be explanation enough — Oliver's just running even later than usual — but as Tommy sits on the edge of the bed to wait, his eyes catch on something else.

Telltale dark green leather, a stark contrast where it’s pooled on the cream carpet in front of the bathroom door. There’s something very wrong about that image; it makes Tommy’s pulse quicken because Oliver would never be careless enough to leave the suit lying around, he’s too smart for that. Something is definitely wrong.

He lifts the suit from the floor, and the glow of a nearby lamp illuminates a scattering of small holes in the material; one in the left shoulder, another below the left shoulder blade, and one more in the left hip. Realisation dawns on him, sudden and swooping, when he drops the suit to the floor moments later and his hands come away stained with dark, red blood.

_Bullet holes. Oliver’s been shot._

Tommy is pounding on the door before he’s even aware of deciding to do so.

“Be right out,” comes Oliver’s strained reply, and Tommy’s panic ratchets up three levels at the pain that he can hear in those few small words.

“Damn it, Oliver — open the door!”

The only response Tommy gets now is silence, followed by the tinkle of glass and an ominous thud.

"Oliver? _Ollie!_ ”

It takes a fair amount of force to shoulder the door open, but the ache Tommy feels in his side vanishes instantly at the sight of Oliver; shirtless, pale and bleeding out on the bathroom floor. There’s a broken glass tumbler shattered across the tiles, shards scattered everywhere, but Tommy can't ignore the swathe of scars on Oliver's chest, his shoulders, his stomach — they're a part of Oliver Tommy's never been allowed to see, but now isn't the time.

Tommy’s hands fly to Oliver’s face, his breath thick and heavy in his chest as he rasps Oliver’s name; again and again, moving shaky hands to cradle Oliver’s head, thumbs pressed to the weakening pulse in Oliver’s neck. He’s only vaguely aware of the fact that he’s kneeling on shards of glass, small fragments that dig into his skin, but it doesn’t matter because a moment later Oliver’s eyes are open and they focus blearily on his. If it weren’t such an adrenaline filled moment Tommy would laugh at the expression on Oliver’s face — a combination of shock and complete confusion.

Later Tommy will blame it on the adrenaline, but as soon as he gets Oliver sitting upright, he threads both hands into Oliver’s hair and presses his mouth against Oliver’s in a filthy, desperate kiss that feels years overdue. Oliver is too shocked to respond, and Tommy pulls away, deliberately not meeting Oliver’s searching gaze.

There's a single bullet on the floor next to Tommy’s right knee, surrounded by fragments of glass, and even though a logical part of Tommy knows that Oliver must remove bullets from himself all the time, that knowledge is hard to come to terms with when he's faced with the reality.

"What the hell happ—"

"Ambushed," Oliver cuts in, wincing as he tries to sit up straighter.

Tommy wants to know more, _needs_ to know more, because there's a part of him that wants to hunt down the guys responsible and break each of their fingers individually. But there’s no time for that. Right now he needs to get Oliver to a hospital.

He’s reaching for his phone and dialing 911 a second later, when a clammy hand tries feebly to knock the phone out of his hands.

“No hospitals,” Oliver rasps, and Tommy just _doesn’t understand._

“You’re bleeding out, Ollie! I can’t fix this, I don't—”

“You can,” comes Oliver’s reply, stubborn and demanding and so laced with pain that Tommy can't find it in himself to refuse.

"Just get the bullets out," Oliver groans, and his eyes are _locked_ on Tommy's. There's a desperation there that Tommy can't absorb right now, a vulnerability that Oliver's never let him see before and it's completely disarming. "Diggle can stitch me up."

Tommy finds an emergency first aid kit stashed under the sink; there's a Trojan man joke on the tip of his tongue about always being prepared, but it dies on his tongue when Oliver settles himself against the counter and Tommy gets a look at Oliver’s back. The skin there is a mottled mess of small cuts, older scars, and new scrapes intermingled with deep purple bruises and the newest additions: two bullet wounds. Tommy's stomach plummets.

There's a pair of surgical tweezers in the first aid kit, and Tommy swallows down the panic that's coursing through him and gets to work because he won't lose Oliver twice, he _can't_.

He bandages the wound on Oliver's shoulder first, where Oliver managed to remove the bullet himself, and tries not to wince as he tapes the dressings to Oliver's skin. The bullet that sits below Oliver’s shoulder blade comes free fairly easily, and Tommy bandages that one too, all the while keeping a close eye on the slow cadence of Oliver's breaths; he's in pain, that much is clear, but he's trying to hide it from Tommy. Stubborn as always.

The bullet in Oliver’s hip is another story altogether. It's buried deep, and Tommy knows this is going to hurt; he's pretty sure Oliver knows it too. It's enough to make sweat bead on Tommy's forehead, and suddenly the bathroom feels too small and too hot. Tommy breathes in and out a few times before taking off his suit jacket and tie, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt and sighing with relief as cool air reaches the sweaty skin of his collarbone.

"Last one," he says to Oliver, who nods shakily in response.

They sit facing one another now, Oliver propped against the counter for support, and Tommy in front of him. Oliver fits his forehead into the crook of Tommy’s shoulder a moment later, leaning into him like a child, and Tommy can feel him panting with the effort of keeping his mouth closed against the howl of pain he wants to release. It's the first vulnerability Oliver's ever shown to him, and it makes Tommy want to hold Oliver close and never let him go. Tommy clears his throat, feeling moist breath against his skin and the way Oliver trembles in his hold; they have to make this quick, Oliver's already lost so much blood.

Tommy takes a deep breath and goes in for the bullet.

Oliver _keens_ against his skin, making sounds that Tommy has never heard him make before, and then Tommy gets a grip on the bullet — finally, finally — and just as he's tugging it free, Oliver sinks his teeth into the flesh where Tommy’s neck meets his shoulder and bites down _hard_.

Tommy sucks in a deep breath; rasping as he feels that bite, searing and wicked all the way to his toes, like he’s been lit on fire from the inside out; and then after, the way Oliver soothes the bite with his tongue.

Tommy swallows hard, taping the last bandage into place and moving away from Oliver. Away from temptation.

"We gotta get you to Diggle," he says, because the tension is unbearable.

Oliver gets slowly to his feet, jaw set against the pain Tommy knows he must be feeling, but the next second he has Tommy pinned against the bathroom counter; and the weight of Oliver's body is a hard line of heat against his own. Oliver is hard, no use hiding it, and Tommy wants nothing more than to rock into that pressure, to lose himself. Near-death experiences make you do crazy things, he knows that now.

But more than anything he knows the way Oliver is looking at him now, with all the intensity and focus of a laser-beam, and it’s disarming and enlightening all at once. He knows why Oliver pushed him away now, he knows that the secret Oliver kept from him was for his own protection. He can see it all now, as obvious as the scars that mark Oliver's torso, an echo of the pain he endured to become the vigilante.

This is what Tommy knows, until Oliver drags his stubbled chin against Tommy’s neck and presses a searing, open mouthed kiss to the skin he finds there, another on his jaw, before he’s pushing his tongue into Tommy’s mouth and kissing him like his life depends on it. After that, Tommy doesn't know anything anymore.

It has to be the pain, there’s no way Oliver would be this loose, this open with him, but Tommy can’t bring himself to say no.

Oliver leaves Tommy gasping for breath when he punctuates the kiss with a slow thrust of his hips against Tommy’s, a hard line of heat beneath skin-warmed leather, and all at once the breath leaves Tommy’s lungs.

“ _F-fuck_ ,” Tommy pants against Oliver’s mouth. “We gotta get you to Diggle,” he says again.

 

— TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
